Tribute to Ed Grennan, 1922-2000

Ed Grennan

1922-2000

Ed Grennan, who passed away on 8/22/00, proved that the best sometimes comes last. Ed's greatest professional achievement came at the tail end of his life when he landed a supporting role in David Lynch's Buena Vista film The Straight Story (that's Ed with Richard Farnsworth in the photo to the right). Ed's appearance in a film loved by critics and audiences alike came the better part of a decade after his retirement from NBC.

Ed Grennan

Ed was probably best known to the Chicago television audience as the host of It's Academic, a weekly quiz show of the late 1960's where teams of students from Chicago area high schools were the competitors. (Roughly, the show was a secondary school version of the NBC network's College Bowl---or possibly a more grown-up version of Quiz Kids, one of the best-known NBC-Chicago network originations.

Those who did hard time in the NBC studios in the Merchandise Mart (and later the NBC Tower) remember Ed as a member of the last generation of staff announcers---the long-suffering breed now replaced by freelancers, daily hires and digital technology.
Ed came to NBC from WLS---where, in 1959-1960, he participated in the Prairie Farmer-to-rock-era transition. (The new format of WLS was not particularly to his liking).
Three decades of NBC-Chicago staffers knew Ed as one of the best people in a curious business.

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Created by Rich Samuels (e-mail to rich@richsamuels.com)